title: In vivo and real-time monitoring of secondary metabolites of living organisms by mass spectrometry.
abstract: Secondary metabolites are compounds that are important for the survival and propagation of animals and plants. Our current understanding on the roles and secretion mechanism of secondary metabolites is limited by the existing techniques that typically cannot provide transient and dynamic information about the metabolic processes. In this manuscript, by detecting venoms secreted by living scorpion and toad upon attack and variation of alkaloids in living Catharanthus roseus upon stimulation, which represent three different sampling methods for living organisms, we demonstrated that in vivo and real-time monitoring of secondary metabolites released from living animals and plants could be readily achieved by using field-induced direct ionization mass spectrometry.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Chirosciences, Food Safety and Technology Research Centre and Department of Applied Biology and Chemical Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong S. A. R., China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Wen-Cai
authors.initials: WC
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Zhong-Ping
authors.initials: ZP
authors.lastname: Yao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D010944:Plants; D012604:Scorpion Venoms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000633:toxicity; D012605:Scorpions
chemical_list: D012604:Scorpion Venoms